


We'll all be better in the morning

by EtuBrutus



Series: the saint-john-nicholas home for wayward scions [1]
Category: The Tarot Sequence - K.D. Edwards
Genre: Canon Compliant, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Rune being a great caretaker, They suck, but the Heart Palace gets raided yeet, its a rollercoaster lads, matthias's sad childhood, more tags as the story updates, my sons Max and Quinn being bros, the Lovers being horrible and shit at everything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:41:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtuBrutus/pseuds/EtuBrutus
Summary: Matthias says, "I remember the moment I realised I wasn't special."“You’ll have to learn to use sigils on your own eventually,” Elena Saint Valentine had said, back impossibly rigid and tall. She looked regal, but the room gaped empty still, like a bird with just one wing. He hadn't said anything about it, nor about the way his stomach twisted at her words.“Okay,” he'd replied eventually, and it had felt like a lie.or, max saint john, before half-house
Relationships: Matthias Saint Valentine & Quinn Saint Nicholas, Matthias Saint Valentine & Rune Saint John
Series: the saint-john-nicholas home for wayward scions [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729432
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	1. talent, trust

Matthias sits still as Elena Saint Valentine looks right through him, seems to realise there’s nothing more he has to offer, and sighs in the matter of ten seconds.

She’s leaning down to look at him, her figure towering over his six-year old height. Her eyes dart around his frame, which he can only see because of the proximity she needs to put herself in. Her face is expressionless, though it’s not like Matthias has much to compare it to. The room they’re in is vast and empty, like most of the Lovers Court. His grandmother, despite her frigidity and power, seems only to fill up half of it.

Matthias’ eyes hurt, and he’s hungry. He wonders if he is allowed to say so. 

He almost opens his mouth when she reaches to grip his face, and tilts it side to side before letting go. She lifts some hair from his head to examine it - the nursemaids had told him that his white wasn’t _royal_ enough for the Arcana, though it’s a little yellower than he’d intended to make it.

The silence stretches on, and Matthias thinks that maybe he’s meant to know what’s going on, but he’s not about to ask the woman the nursemaids say is his _grandmother,_ whatever that means. He’s never met Elena Saint Valentine before, and she hasn’t spoken once, so he doesn’t either. Because it’s probably polite. And he really is hungry - the kitchens are only three floors away.

He almost jumps when his grandmother speaks. To _him._ “Matthias,” she says, “I am going to teach you, and you will learn the way I want you to.”

It’s vague, but not a question, so he doesn’t mention that he’s got nursemaids to teach him spelling and maths already. Instead, he says, “Thank you,” and it comes out more nervous than he’d hoped.

His grandmother stands up, and her full height would probably challenge the clouds if they weren’t indoors. She looks down at him. “You will be schooled in magic. Particularly, the Fae kind.”

 _Why,_ Matthias wants to ask. But he doesn’t, because she’s already walked away.

He’s heard the word _fae_ used around him before - sometimes the nursemaids, and other times people run into him and whisper it amongst themselves. He has better hearing than they think he does. 

He knows that his language is called Old Fae, like other languages are called Atalantean or English. He’s heard them both spoken before, and can barely pick up on the smooth, twisting words. 

The nursemaids speak in Old Fae to him, and sometimes in other tongues among themselves, but they still teach him maths and spelling a few times during the week. He doesn’t go to school (the word he’s read about in the translated books he has,) but instead, Elena Saint Valentine brings him to the vast room once every few days. 

The first time he sits with her, she talks about metal and gemstones and things called _conductors._ He doesn’t speak.

Later, she tells him about magic, and how it’s not a _thing,_ but more like water or air, that it can be moved between people and objects. 

(“Is changing your shape and colour a...form of magic?” he asks.

“It’s called shapeshifting, what you do,” is the reply, the question ignored.)

Months later, she shows him her jewelry, calls them _sigils,_ and creates a ribbon of fire and clay with nothing but an earring. It looks beautiful, but Matthias stays away from the sigils - (he doesn’t know why.)

“You’ll have to learn to use sigils on your own eventually,” the arcana says, back impossibly rigid and tall. She looks regal, but the room gapes empty still, like a bird with just one wing. He doesn’t say anything about it, nor about the way his stomach twists at her words.

“Okay,” he replies eventually, and it feels like a lie.

The truth is, Matthias doesn’t understand sigils. He’s ten now, but the pieces of jewelry are unresponsive to his touch, with none of the sifting threads of magic that his grandmother had talked about. 

When he’d told her about it before, the reply had been, “Try harder. The sigils are working perfectly fine.” _You’re not,_ he could imagine her saying, but she didn’t.

He holds the sigils, and they tell him nothing. The only reaction he ever gets are from the iron ones, that burn him to the touch. It feels silly to complain about metal, and a question about _why_ it happened would go ignored, so he never mentions it. He avoids picking them up, because dropping them the next second would make him look even worse. 

The lessons Elena Saint Valentine gives him become less and less frequent, though her temper seems to grow each time. Sometimes, he pretends to understand the sigils when holding them, pretending to feel the magic within. 

It all falls apart one lesson, when he’s told to _use_ one. The arcana waits, expectantly, for him to release the spell inside the metal, but he can’t. He _knows_ he can’t, and just looks down at his feet in wait.

“Well?”

He says nothing. His skin almost changes to blend colours with the floor, but he stops himself.

She’s angrier, more frustrated now. “Can you or _can you not_ use the sigil, Matthias?”

He stays quiet, and he’s _scared,_ and his skin aches to shift, to let loose some of the fear.

Her voice is louder when she says, “ _Answer me.”_

“No,” Matthias says, quiet. It sounds like he’s going to cry, but he doesn’t. “I...I can’t.” 

His eyes are still on his feet when he hears the sound of her walking toward the door. It opens, and shuts behind her. Matthias thinks he might have felt better if she’d shouted at him or tried to understand, but he realises that she’s never really given him much attention. Sigils and schooling, yes, she’d devoted time to that, but not to him. 

He isn’t summoned by the Arcana again.

Things become different as he gets older. The nursemaids do the basics of his caretaking, but he doesn’t see them much anymore - he’s old enough now. 

There are a few weeks after his incident with the sigil where he’s almost invisible, and Matthias realises that he _loves_ it. No arcana to learn from, no iron sigils, no nursemaids lecturing him… just the vast halls of the East Wing of the Lover’s Court. 

The halls aren’t empty, but Matthias doesn’t need them to be. He sits in a nook in the wall, or near a window, and reads books about dragons and _school_ and grandparents and families. Whenever someone walks by, Matthias blends his skin to match the walls, and they walk right past. Even if they see him, the Lovers courtiers are self-absorbed enough not to care, so for a few weeks, Matthias reads and walks and plays on his own 

He’s hiding behind a cabinet in a corridor one day (closer to the Arcana’s chambers than he’s ever gone) when he hears Elena Saint Valentine’s imperious voice, talking in a language that isn’t Old Fae. He almost doesn’t recognise it, but Matthias hasn’t talked to many people, so the voice is easy to pinpoint. His skin takes on the wall’s pattern immediately, and he breathes quietly.

After a while, Matthias realises she’s speaking in Atlantean.

“- not got the magical affinity that I’d been told of. Those nursemaids confuse transformation and shapeshifting with abilities that are _significant,_ and I spend _months_ of lessons making up for their mistake -”

There’s another man’s voice as well. 

“We _need_ powerful alliances - you know this, Lady Lovers.” he says. There’s a pause. “You could...hand him over to me. We can still use him, I think.”

Matthias realises that they’re both talking about _him_ , _Matthias_ , and his stomach twists, like he’s just touched iron. He curses his sharp fae hearing for a moment, but the man continues.

“He’s got Lovers’ blood - _fae blood,_ too - and from what you’re saying, he can mould his appearance at will. We can use him. A marriage alliance with your grandson could easily be forged.” another pause. “Make him my ward, mother, and I’ll handle it.”

The words don’t register. Even if they did, he probably still wouldn’t understand. Matthias waits for the arcana’s rebuke, for his grandmother to say ‘ _that’s ridiculous,_ ’ or for neither of them to be talking about him at all. He’d never _been_ talked about before, in a language he doesn’t know to speak. 

But unsurprisingly, Elena Saint Valentine says nothing.

Matthias’ uncle lives in the Northern Wing, which is probably why he’s never seen or heard the man before. Matthias hadn’t even known he’d _had_ an uncle (in hindsight, he’s never thought about his family much at all- probably something all the Lovers had in common.)

His things are moved to a new room without him knowing, and it takes asking around strangers to realise the nursemaids have been dismissed, and that he’s going to be living near his Uncle now. 

There are new helpers - _servants_ \- in the North Wing, and though his new room is bigger, and there are more people around _all the time,_ he feels uncomfortable. 

Nobody speaks Old Fae, for a start. So he tries not to speak to anyone. It isn’t difficult, since the walls are easy to blend in to.

Matthias is reading when his uncle talks to him for the first time. His own skin and hair are the exact shade of the wallpaper behind him, so he’s caught off-guard when the man stops right in front of him.

“Matthias,” he says in english, standing straight and not looking down, “I will be in charge of you from now on.” 

Matthias looks up and stays quiet, because he can’t speak english very well, and doesn’t want to seem stupid.

The man must catch on. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” is what Matthias goes with, because it’s a safe word.

His uncle sees right through the pretense, and raises a dark eyebrow. Matthias wants to hide. “You are aware, Matthias, that nobody here speaks Old Fae. As a scion in this court, you _will_ be learning English from tutors. You will _not_ speak in any other tongue.”

Matthias nods, but his uncle doesn’t move. He seems to be waiting for a response. “Yes,” Matthias says eventually. It seems like a less safe word, now.

The man stays in the corridor until Matthias goes back to his room with the book.

Matthias’ tutors teach him for a few years, in lessons that stretch on for _hours_ until he’s older and can speak it fluently enough. He’s still got an accent that Uncle hires more tutors to get rid of. Not that Uncle makes him speak much, anyway. He isn’t required to attend any events or parties, for which Matthias is immensely grateful.

He also discovers that Uncle is a Scion Heir, which means he’s got a direction blood relation with their court’s Arcana. Lady Lovers. Elena Saint Valentine. His grandmother.

He hasn’t seen her once, after the conversation he’d heard between her and Uncle. Matthias has barely been outside the Lovers Court, can’t remember much of what the outside looks like, and though he knows every passage in the North Wing, he isn’t allowed to leave it.

He doesn’t know where he’d go if he could.

Nobody speaks Old Fae in the North Wing. He supposes Lady Lovers does, though she doesn’t count anymore. Matthias is slinking silently through the downstairs courtyard, reciting the words in his mind, because the language is comfortable in the way that courtiers and sigils and English never will be. 

And then someone runs _right_ into him, knocking them both over.

They’ve got tanned skin and dark hair, which is the first thing Matthias sees. He thinks of how earthy it seems, and how easy it would be to replicate it on himself, until he sees the girl’s eyes. 

They’re plain and non-fae. She doesn’t have the buzz of energy that accompanies magic or sigils that every courtier in the North Wing has, and Matthias immediately relaxes. 

Then it hits him. She’s _human._ He’s never seen somebody human before.

Before he can say or _do_ anything, she glances at him, makes a violent _shh_ gesture and darts behind a staircase. 

A few seconds later, he hears another pair of footsteps running toward him. Before he can look down at himself, Matthias shifts his own appearance until he has the same earthy complexion and hair as the girl does. He wonders what it’s like to be thought of as human. 

“Hey, boy!” the guard barks as he stops running, “You see a girl running through here?”

Matthias says nothing and shakes his head. Why is he doing this? He doesn’t even know the human.

After the man strides away, the girl emerges from the staircase and lets out a breath. “ _That_ was a close one, christ.” She glances over at him and grins. “Thanks for the assist, comrade.”

She’s speaking English, and Matthias takes a second to recalibrate his natural Old Fae before answering, “You’re welcome. Why was he… chasing you?”

“No reason,” she dodges, before squinting at him. “Wait...you didn’t look like this before. Weren’t you _paler_ five seconds ago?”

Matthias realises he’s still using the brown hues, and let the shift slip away into his regular skin, in case it counted as stealing. “Yes. Sorry. If I offended you.”

The girl’s eyes widened, as though she’d never seen shapeshifting before. “I’ve never seen shapeshifting before. _Merde_ , I thought you were human -” she seems wary now as she takes a step back. “I swear, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Please, I work in the kitchens, don’t... I don’t know, vaporise me with magic or sigils or...”

Matthias starts talking before he can second guess himself - it’s been years since he’s even _seen_ someone his own age. “I’m not magic, don’t worry. I can’t even use sigils,” It stings to say out loud, but he keeps talking, “I can just shapeshift. Barely even a scion.” He’s rambling, but he keeps going, “I’ve never actually seen a human person, either -”

The girl seems far less alarmed now that he’s out of breath and words, and she relaxes visibly. 

“Alright,” she says, turning to look at his face. Matthias squirms a bit, used to always hiding amongst wallpaper (or more recently, in his room) but he doesn’t step away. “Well, my name’s Joanna,” she says, and puts her hand out.

Matthias stares in confusion before realising he’s meant to shake it, like humans do. When he finally obliges, trying to figure out how to move someone else’s hand properly, Joanna snorts, and laughs, and then he’s laughing too. He can’t remember the last time he laughed with someone that wasn’t a nursemaid.

They’re both laughing hysterically, and it feels like trust.

  
  



	2. Iron, anger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...this chapter's pretty late and pretty short. bygones are bygones though!  
> also, yeah I'm sorry this one's not very happy

A week later, he’s being lectured by uncle, in what seems like out of the blue. 

“Matthias, you _do_ understand that the world _does not_ run on childishness and courtesy. It is give and take. That is how this Court operates. It would do you well to remember that.”

Matthias keeps his head down and tries to think about what he’s done wrong, but says nothing. Uncle’s lectures are angrier and longer whenever he talks back, and with every question asked automatically deemed rhetorical, the easiest way to get through one is to stay silent. (Even if it is humiliating to be talked down to like an _infant_.)

“This is not the first time you’ve done this, is it, Matthias,” and he’s sure that Uncle is making this up because Matthias hasn’t done _anything_ \- “I’m afraid there will have to be appropriate punishment. We can’t have this sort of behaviour in the Lovers Court. What would the Arcana think?”

Matthias goes cold. He’s never _been_ punished before - he hadn’t done anything to warrant it, and he’s always tried to stay invisible. It was never hard, not with his abilities. 

“Follow me. Now, Matthias.”

The ‘punishment’ ends up being a room of reflective walls and floor, but Matthias doesn’t realise what type of metal it is until he’s been locked inside, with no lights.

It’s dark. The iron burns. It _burns._

He remembers the time he’d slipped up during a Court dinner with uncle, where he’d said he’d rather eat with his fingers than the iron cutlery, and _of course_ Uncle had remembered, and he should have just burned his hands then rather than scream and suffer and burn in this tiny room with painful metal everywhere. 

It touches and almost sticks to his skin, and it’s almost like water in the way that it clings to every fiber of him and threatens to pull him under. He can’t breathe, and it _hurts._

Uncle made him leave his shoes outside. His feet are raw. He can feel the coolness and _burning_ and _pain_ the iron causes through his thin clothes.

Matthias’ throat is raw, and he doesn’t remember when he stops screaming, or when a servant is finally sent to take him back to his room. He doesn’t look up at his uncle when he passes him later in the corridor.

“So you can shapeshift. Would you be able to turn into, I don’t know, a filing cabinet?”

“Filing cabinets aren’t _alive,_ Joanna.”

They’re sitting on the corner steps of one of the downstairs pavilions, where a few of the North Wing servants are milling about and sweeping. Matthias wears his skin in brown hues again, so the servants don’t notice his fae skin or ears. He doesn’t want them knowing that a (somewhat) scion was watching, because that tended to make humans nervous. 

Joanna had stuck around after their ridiculous first meeting, and they’d often come downstairs and laze about - he had the feeling that she was just as bored as he’d been, since there were no other children in the entire North Wing. 

(Well, that wasn’t true anymore. Uncle’s new son had a hoard of nursemaids doting on him constantly, but his banshee-like screaming would be enough to drive Matthias away on it’s own. He knew the man considered him an asset, nothing near a _son._ )

His new, earthy skin and hair startled him when it actually worked in making him look human. He’d lost trust in his abilities since he realised they never helped in hiding him from Uncle - the man could find him no matter how well he blended into the walls. It led to more trouble when Matthias tried to get out of punishments by hiding, so he tended not to try anymore.

Joanna rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m not a _scion,_ so I wouldn’t know. Explain how it works. What are the limits?”

Matthias pulls his knees to his chest and looks upwards. “I _can_ change my appearance. Mostly colours, but with more effort it can be size and shape. I haven’t tested it much, though - shapeshifting isn’t _magic_ like sigils are.”

She elbows him. “ Of course it is, dipshit. Pretty sure _magically_ changing the way you look counts as _magic._ Plus, you’re...fae? Is that different from atlantean?”

“Sort of. The whole thing’s a mess - I’ve never met my parents, so I don’t know exactly what I am.”

He isn't surprised his parents hadn’t thought to care for him. He really doesn't know who they were, but if they were related to Uncle and Grandmother, it was expected they’d be distant and uncaring - in the typical Lovers manner. Matthias wonders if he might grow up to be the same. He doesn't want to.

“You’ve never met your parents?” Joanna asks incredulously, trying to find the hidden joke. When Matthias shakes his head, she turns to him, a look of pity (understanding) visible. 

They're silent for a while, until she speaks, treading carefully. “You have the Lovers name though, don’t you? Matthias Saint Valentine. If your parents didn’t name you, then...who did?”

Matthias looks up at the sky - it seems further away from the Heart Palace than anywhere else.

“I can’t remember. No one spoke to me much, and it was probably just assigned to me by inheritance.” He speaks plainly, because it’s the truth. Fae aren’t good at lying, anyway.

Joanna scoffs, and stews in what he's said for a while. Matthias wonders idly if he’s done something wrong, because there’s no reason for her to be angry. If Uncle’s taught him anything, it’s that he doesn’t know when he messes up.

His muscles tighten suddenly, in anticipation of the burn of iron. (Why? He shouldn't be scared - he _shouldn't._ Joanna wouldn't burn him - she's a _friend._ )

(But Uncle's _family._ It's never mattered.)

“Sorry,” he attempts, quiet averting his gaze. She looks up sharply at him, “There’s no reason for you to be sorry.”

“You were angry…?” 

“Not at _you,_ ” she says, clenching the pavillion steps. “At _them._ Your uncle and grandmother. The Lovers in general. They’re your _family._ They’re supposed to talk to you and care. That’s what a family _does,_ Matthias.”

Her face is hard, and Matthias knows she’s thinking of her own family, close and caring and safe. He thinks of his own - being Uncle’s ward, which doesn’t count for much when he’s thrown into the Iron Room _because_ of it. Elena Saint Valentine, always caring more about sigils and power than Matthias - being discarded because sigils never spoke to him, but he wasn’t surprised, since nobody else ever did.

“I don’t have - ” he hesitates - the English feels foreign again in his mouth. “The Lovers Court isn’t really… a family. I’m related to a lot of them, but we don’t care much for each other. We’re not… like yours. We don’t look out for each other.”

Joanna’s mother calls out to her with a smile, and waves. Joanna smiles in return, before looking back to Matthias, and he feels this longing, for _parents_ and safety and people to talk to without obligation. Her face is determined when she talks next.

“You’ve got me, at least,” and _i’ll be your family_ goes unsaid,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a very, very basic understanding of conditioned trauma, but I hope I got the point across. yes, I apologise for all the shit Matthias goes through (haha not really) bUT the fic is canon complaint so u already know that Max get's a not bad ending.  
> hahaha  
> he does, really, believe me  
> hahahAHAHAHA  
> :)


	3. names, bonds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slightly shorter update, but there's way more coming up soon. enjoy!

Matthias never talks to Joanna when Uncle is in range. It’s too risky, now that he’s fifteen. 

The scion heir’s mind seems to fray, nowadays - Matthias doesn’t know why, but he knows it makes the man crueler and more frequent with his punishments, so it’s more of a warning sign to _behave_ than anything else.

Of course, Matthias still gets burned. For the tiniest things.

 _You know what happens when you slip up,_ a part of him says. _It’s your own fault that you don’t learn._ The rest of him just endures the searing pain.

Once, when Matthias stutters over a word in English during dinner, he’s made to wear an iron clasp on his wrist for an entire day. He’d never spoken much in the North Wing before, but now he’s used to being as silent as a ghost unless spoken to.

Another time, he ignores a palace courtier who’s leaning in _far too close_ \- it’s all he can do not to step back or run. His skin had prickles and itches unpleasantly, wanting nothing more than to shift into someone else’s skin, but Uncle is standing next to him, so he can’t. Doesn’t. Matthias just holds his breath.

Once the courtier leaves, Uncle shoves him in ice-cold fury, hands heavy with iron sigils. “You’re _meant,_ ” he snarls, “to be building marital ties. So swallow your insolent _pride_ and flirt back. In English, if you aren’t pathetically incompetent.”

 _Flirt back?_ He barely knows what that means. But whatever he’s done, he shouldn’t do it again. The slip-up leads to time in the Iron Room, which Matthias _hates._ He hates it more than anything, despite his fear dissolving into resignation. What’s there to be scared of? The pain never lessens, it’s always the same suffocating darkness while white-hot pain cuts into him _everywhere._

The courtiers whisper all the time. Gossip, secrets, whatever in Atlantis they talk about, it’s never out loud, always hushed, like _everybody_ cares what they say. Matthias overhears everything in the hallways - he’s _fae,_ of course he can.

Sometimes it’s about the Arcana - Elena Saint Valentine. How she rules without a Lover, how it’s unnatural. Matthias stops listening when her name comes up - it’s a sour reminder that he’d never been good enough for his grandmother, or the sigils, or any scion he’s ever met.

Other times, the higher ranked nobles talk about their new slaves, young atlanteans drugged out of their mind, docile enough not to know where they are. It makes Matthias sick, but there’s nothing he can do. He’s got no autonomy of his own - but he lives here. He’s grown up in the Heart Palace. The younger atlanteans shouldn’t have ever chosen to come close. He envies their freedom.

Or maybe they’re all just as trapped as he is.

And there are the times when he hears his own name in the hallways. _“Young, part fae - he’s got the makings of a marital alliance,_ ” he hears them murmur, when there’s nothing else to talk about. _‘Marriage,’_ they whisper sometimes, _sometimes,_ because they don’t talk about him much, but when they do, it’s _always_ about that.

Marriage.

He realises that the Lovers take it more seriously that the books ever did. Hierarchies are built on marriage, and empires are toppled by it. It’s almost like toy soldiers on a map - a pair of lovers, a group of lovers. Forging unspoken deals through metal rings, and it’s nothing like the stories he’d heard in Old Fae, of princes and paupers, knights and nobles, and ‘true love.’ In the Heart Palace, those bonds are dictated by politics and power. It’s strategy, it’s _terrifying._

He gets to exhale with Joanna. She’s not stupid, she knows that he’s got burns that aren’t from fire, and that he’s being reared by Uncle as a marital pawn to lessen the disaster that’ll follow the Heart Palace’s fall. (Even Joanna knows that Elena’s rule is unstable, that her throne will be toppled by her own hand.)

They don’t talk about it, though. 

Instead, Joanna makes him teach her some phrases in Old Fae, and he laughs at how the language begs for mercy from her butchering tongue. 

They slack off and sit on the steps of a pavilion in the North Wing, watching the afternoon sky. It’s a striking shade of cerulean, and Matthias would try to replicate it with his hair, or his skin, but he sticks to Joanna’s brown, earthy hues. It’s hard enough to shapeshift with being forced to touch _iron_ so often, and he feels the colours seep away from his skin. He has to concentrate to keep his shift steady. He’d never had to when he was younger, but he’s not young anymore.

Joanna groans as she tries (and fails) to say introduce herself in Old Fae. “Christ, this is difficult. I can barely say my own _name_ in this language -- English is _so_ much easier.”

“Speak for yourself, _human,_ ” he says, jokingly, but it’s quiet and hoarse.

A silence settles over them, then, and it’s _not_ because of Joanna, it’s because Matthias is _tired._ He doesn’t know why, exactly, but he feels like lying down and sleeping and never waking up. Underneath the sky. This would be the perfect place.

Joanna sits in the silence, quiet enough that she’d pass as fae. She understands what he’s feeling, Matthias thinks. Or maybe she’s just more perceptive than everybody else is.

He doesn’t really expect her to speak, but she does.

“Names are important to us, you know. To my family.”

She looks toward him, and continues, “My parents - Jordan, Anatoly. When they named me, they chose to use both of their names - Jo-anna. See? They do that for all the children in our family. It’s a tradition.”

 _That sounds nice,_ Matthias thinks. It does.

“They’re a way of showing that you _belong_ somewhere. That, even when you’re far away from your kin, there’s your name tying you to them.”

Joanna lapses back into silence, but it’s one for Matthias to break. He hears the unspoken question, one he's answered before. “I don’t know who named me.” he admits. “It could have been anyone. It doesn’t really matter, though - being tied to this place --” to _U_ _ncle,_ to _Elena,_ “-- isn’t something anyone would want.”

“Maybe you should choose a new name,” says Joanna.

Matthias looks up. “I can’t just _change_ it.”

“Of course you can. If you can change the way you look, you’ve definitely got the right to change this too. And, okay, it can be a nickname if you want. But it’ll be _yours._ ”

Matthias lets himself smile. “We’re really doing this, then? Huh.” He thinks for a while, before huffing. “I can’t think of anything.”

Joanna snaps her fingers and sits up hastily, as though she’s discovered something. It looks ridiculous, and it makes Matthias laugh. “I _forgot_ ," she says, " you can’t name _yourself._ It’s basically a rule - a nickname has to come from somewhere else.”

“ _You_ think of one then, and tell me how easy it is.”

Joanna grins wickedly, and Mattthias realises that he’s fallen for it - she gets to call him names, and he’s given explicit permission. 

Well. There’s not much else to do about it, is there?

She seems to be thinking seriously, scratching her bushy hair and humming. “Martin? Mark? Morgan? It’s got to sound like your old name a bit, at least. Hmm, Matt, maybe?”

“Matt?” He grimaces. “You might as well call me ‘Carpet,’ or ‘Rug.’ Definite no.”

“Ugh, _scions._ You’re such a baby. Alright, fine,” Joanna mulls it over some more, and there’s no sound for a few minutes, until she snaps her fingers and squints at him. “Max. How about that name? You seem like you could be a Max.”

 _Max._ It’s not what he’s used to answering to, but it doesn’t sound...bad. And maybe a nickname is warranted, if he’s practically a different person with Joanna than with the Lovers courtiers. 

“It’s...nice. Fine.”

Joanna grins widely, and elbows him to get him to stand up. “Well then, _Max Saint Valentine,_ get off your ass and teach me how to introduce myself in Old Fae. You can lead by example. We haven’t got all day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, this was a shorter chapter, but there's two more left for this part of the series, which have a LOT of plot. again, the story is canon compliant, so...you know. OCs. heh. whatever will I do with them?  
> >:)  
> leave a comment with your thoughts, if you like the story so far. I'm @etubrutus666 on Tumblr, and very much obsessed with The Tarot Sequence - hmu there if you want to gush about it, because there is no limit to my love for the original books.

**Author's Note:**

> I read the two books, fell in love with Max's character, and saw that there were no angsty fics about him at all. unacceptable. so here's my own take on what his life was like befoooooore the books. it'll probably be disproved by canon in book 3, but who cares. love KD Edwards, but i need Matthias saint valentine content to satisfy my soul.  
> quarantine exists, so I should have a regular posting schedule. Feel free to comment with any of your thoughts!


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